Purchase talk continues

It appears as though West Boylston selectmen are considering the purchase of the Three Rivers Building, at the corner of Franklin and Worcester Streets, for use as a town hall.

The town’s Facilities Implementation and Strategic Planning Committee (FISP), which includes all five members of the Board of Selectmen, went into a closed-door session last week after town counsel cleared the way for West Boylston’s attempt to avoid a bidding process required under state procurement laws.

After ending negotiations earlier in the month with the owners of Flagg RV on West Boylston Street for an 11-acre parcel, the Facilities Committee met to discuss whether the town could label the Three Rivers property as “unique,” which would allow the town to circumvent the portion of the law requiring the town to open such bids to all comers.

The town must be able to convince the state’s Inspector General that advertising the town’s desire for property would not benefit a third party who may want to sell land to the town. The committee issued such a request in late 2012.

Three River’s owners did not respond to that request, which would normally mean the town would have to re-advertise its want of property. However, those requirements can be circumvented if the town can successfully prove no other property could meet the town’s needs.

Since the discussion has turned from Flagg RV to the Three Rivers Building, the board has shifted priorities away from a municipal complex to, an assumed, less expensive and near immediate solution for the senior center and town hall.

Bethlehem Bible Church on Lancaster Street and the Three Rivers Building are ready for the town to move in, committee members said. The church did respond to the town’s request last year and is now being looked at as a potential senior center and community center. Both buildings require “minimal” work to be used for town purposes, FISP Chairman and Selectman John Hadley said.

Committee members listed for town counsel several reasons why the Three Rivers Building should be deemed unique, and why negotiations should start without a new bidding process.

First, the building meets the exact square footage required in the request documents, Hadley said. Second, it meets a long-standing desire to have town hall at the center of town, Selectman Kevin McCormick said.

McCormick, who was a member for all of the town’s recent building committees as a selectman, has long advocated for a center of town location for town offices.

Board members also said they could not name another property they feel meets the town’s needs as well as the Three Rivers Building does.

The Flagg RV property would require the town to raze all existing structures and rebuild new buildings, McCormick said. With the asking price of the church near $1 million, and the asking price of Three Rivers at $1.6 million (both are subject to appraisal and negotiations), the board feels the town can open a new town hall and senior center, almost immediately, for around $3 million.

“All we would have to do is to make some offices, nothing extraordinary,” Hadley said.

“There would need to be some minor renovations at the Three Rivers Building, because it is not laid out properly, but nothing structurally,” Town Administrator Leon Gaumond Jr. said.

Paying back $3 million over 20 years would cost the town roughly $870,000 in interest, based on conservative estimates, Gaumond said.

What was not immediately available, but requested by committee members, was the impact on average tax bills, a number almost certain to be asked about in the upcoming months by residents. But the board is hoping the “impact” will be mitigated.

The most recent building committee now includes a member of the Finance Committee, Ray Bricault, who pushed almost immediately upon joining the committee last summer for a long-term finance plan.

Bricault has suggested the town borrow in a manner that would add new bond payments in amounts similar to those of expiring debts. The result of such a plan would be that, while tax bills would realize the normal increases allowed by Proposition 2 1/2 , the increases for borrowed money would be reduced by the same amount now on tax bills for loans about to be paid off. Thus, the impact for borrowing, though still requiring residents’ approval, would be negligible on tax bills.

While the board did not discuss a timeline for presenting the plan to voters in West Boylston, and there was no response to requests for that information before The Banner went to press, the timeline for the state process is straightforward. The town must publish a statement declaring the property unique in the Central Register. The Inspector General then has 35 days to refute the claim.

Members of the board did discuss meeting with the owners of the Three Rivers Building in time for next week’s Central Register publication.